Notable Quotables - 01/07/1991

Published: 1/7/1991 1:00 AM ET

Marxist,
Communist...Let's Call the Whole Thing Off

"A television
review on Nov. 27 about High Crimes and Misdemeanors, a Frontline
report on Channels 13 and 49 about the Iran-Contra affair, described the
Sandinista government of Nicaragua incorrectly. While Marxist, it was not
Communist."
- New York Times Corrections box, December 7.

The Year Gone By

"But don't you
think the pro-lifers now, Tom [Brokaw] and Jane [Pauley], don't you think that
they are, if anything now, a little reticent to make it an issue because
experience has shown that when they make it an issue they lose?"
- Bryant Gumbel on NBC's 1990: Living on the Edge, December 30.

"The heroes of the
'80s - Ronald Reagan, Michael Milken, Donald Trump - came under attack for
having wedded the country to a fantasy world. Quieter, less charismatic
leaders took charge."
- Reporters Kevin Anderson and John Hillkirk in a December 31 USA Today
story.

Deciding By Race

"It was hard to
find anyone last week in the education world who did not express dismay at a
Washington bureaucrat's decision to bar federal aid to colleges and
universities that offer scholarships restricted to minority students."
- from the Time news story by Associate Editor Susan Tifft.

"It wouldn't
surprise me if George Bush appointed David Duke, the former white
sheet-wearing KKK wizard, as Republican National Committee chairman to
implement the administration's white race-driven social policies."
- USA Today "Inquiry" Editor Barbara Reynolds, December 21
column.

"Throughout his
political career Bush has courted blacks and donated personally to minority
scholarships. Despite that, he vetoed the civil rights bill and refused to
condemn the racial tactics in the Jesse Helms campaign."
- NBC reporter Jim Miklaszewki, December 17 NBC Nightly News.

Communist Safety
Net

"Falling through
the cracks: With demise of communism, Budapest's poor lose their safety
net"
- Boston Globe, December 31

Please Oppress
Us

"But there may be
even more significant backers for a crackdown: the general public....convinced
that the country is falling into the hands of the black-market mafia and
fearful the dissolution of the union will bring deeper chaos and poverty, they
are ready to sacrifice - or at least postpone - the pursuit of lofty
democratic goals so that order can be restored."
- Time Senior Writer Bruce Nelan on the Soviet Union, December 31.

"As Plakwicz ['a
feminist in Warsaw'] suggests, part of the reason many women feel let down by
their revolutions is the emergence of conservative forces, including the
Catholic Church, following the toppling of communist regimes."
- Boston Globe reporter Jonathan Kaufman, December 27 news story.

Reagan's
Economic Legacy

Reporter Carole Simpson:
"Here we are at 1991 worrying about war, worrying about a recession,
four-fifths of the American people think we're on the wrong track. I think
this recession comes at the worst time..."Sam Donaldson:
"Well, now does everyone agree with me this is a result of Reaganomics?"Simpson: "I
do."
- Exchange on This Week with David Brinkley, December 30.

"There's a new
analysis that says that the American family is worse off today than it was in
1973. After ten years of Reaganite, supply-side economics that you so
passionately advocate, and that old question that Reagan used to ask about
Carter, 'Are we better off?' apparently families are worse off. Do you really
think the American people buy supply-side anymore? Don't they just think it
was debt accumulation?"
- Lesley Stahl to Jack Kemp on Face the Nation, December 16.

Homeless Help?

"After a decade of
despair, Americans are finding ways to help the homeless by providing
treatment, counseling and training"
- Time, December 17

Judge and Jury

"Though Iran-Contra
ranked as the most insidious scam of the mud-spattered '80s, not one of the
eight convicted offenders has spent a night in jail."
- Time Deputy Washington Bureau Chief Laurence Barrett reporting on
Oliver North's convictions being reversed, December 10.

Justify My
Sleaze

"Sleek, fairly
harmless stuff, as it turns out....The Justify My Love video is a
long way from shocking...[it] spices the proceedings with suggestions of
bondage, voyeurism and multiple couplings among various partners and
genders."
- Time music critic Jay Cocks, December 17.

Correcting for
Being Right

"[Georgia Senator
Sam] Nunn's opposition to Bush's Gulf policies is part of a deliberate
self-renovation from outright conservative to more politically correct
moderate ready to run in 1992."
- U.S. News & World Report Senior Editor Donald Baer, December
17.

Don't Kill Bugs

"Give a bug a
break! Return it to its outdoor home if you can. Swat it if you must. Don't
spray it."
- "Save the Air Tips" from a recently released Corporation for
Public Broadcasting manual.

"Jeremiah Johnson,
10, from Brentwood, N.Y...intervenes whenever his younger brother is about to
commit an environmental outrage, like pulling the legs off defenseless (and
ecologically valuable) spider."
- Reporter Janice Horowitz in story on "The Ecokid Corps," December
24 Time.

What?

"The earth is home,
and all its refugees, its homeless, sometimes seem a sort of advance guard of
apocalypse. They represent a principle of disintegration - the fate of
homelessness generalized to planetary scale....The flesh is home: African
nomads without houses decorate their faces and bodies instead. The skull is
home. We fly in and out of it on mental errands. The highly developed spirit
becomes a citizen of its own mobility, for home has been internalized and
travels with the homeowner. Home, thus transformed: is freedom. Everywhere you
hang your hat is home. Home is the bright light under the hat."
- Time "Essay" by Senior Writer Lance Morrow, December 24.

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